Henry Jackson Ellicott

Henry Jackson Ellicott (June 22 or 23, 1847, in Annapolis, Maryland – February 11, 1901, in Washington, D.C.) was an American sculptor and architectural sculptor, best known for his work on American Civil War monuments.

Henry Jackson Ellicott
Henry Jackson Ellicott, from National Cyclopaedia of American Biography (1904).
BornJune 22 or 23, 1847
DiedFebruary 11, 1901(1901-02-11) (aged 53)
Resting placeRock Creek Cemetery
Education
Known forArchitectural sculpting
Notable work
Spouse
Lida Dyre
(m. 1883)

Biography

The son of James P. Ellicott and Fannie Adelaide Ince, he attended Rock Hill College School in Ellicott City, Maryland, and Gonzaga College High School in Washington, D.C. He studied at Georgetown Medical College, and may have served in the Civil War.[1]

Ellicott's plaster of Abraham Lincoln in the Capitol Rotunda, 1866

At age 19, he completed a larger-than-life plaster statue of Abraham Lincoln – likely an entry in the Lincoln Monument Association's competition for a marble statue – that was exhibited for two years in the United States Capitol rotunda. The competition was won by sculptor Lot Flannery, whose statue is at District of Columbia City Hall. The fate of Ellicott's Lincoln statue is unknown.[2]

He studied at the National Academy of Design, 1867–1870, under William Henry Powell and Emanuel Leutze; and later studied under Constantino Brumidi.[3]

His first two commissions were for monuments at Mount Calvary Cemetery in Lothian, Maryland (1870) and Greenwood Cemetery in Laurel, Maryland. He was the likely modeler of an Infantryman statue for J. W. Fiske Architectural Metals, Inc. of New York City, that was mass-produced and used in numerous municipal Civil War monuments. Company records list the sculptor's name as "Allicot."[4]

He moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and modeled architectural sculpture on buildings for the 1876 Centennial Exposition.[5] He remained in Philadelphia, and exhibited occasionally at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts between 1878 and 1891.[6]

Ellicott was appointed Superintendent and Chief Modeler for the U.S. Treasury Department in 1889, responsible for all federal monuments.[citation needed] He moved to Washington, D.C. He died on February 11, 1901, in Washington, D.C. He was buried at Rock Creek Cemetery.[7]

Personal

In 1883, he married Lida Dyre, of Maryland,[8] a woman eighteen years his junior.[9] They had no children.

Selected works

General George McClellan (1891–1894), City Hall, Philadelphia

Civil War monuments

Portrait busts

George M. Dallas (1893), U.S. Capitol, Washington, D.C.

Attributed works

  • Infantryman, zinc, modeled by "Allicot" (Ellicott?) and mass-produced by J. W. Fiske Architectural Metals, Inc., New York City, from ca. 1875 to 1927. Examples in Saratoga, New York (1875), Chambersburg, Pennsylvania (1878), King Ferry, New York (1882), Arcadia, Missouri (1886), Norwalk, Connecticut (1889), Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts (1890), Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts (1891),[18] Pottstown, Pennsylvania (1893), Berlin, New York (1906), Iola, Kansas (1909), and North Kingston, Rhode Island (1912).
  • Charles Evans, bronze, Charles Evans Cemetery, Reading, Pennsylvania.[19] The undated statue is signed "ELLICOTT SC." and was cast by Bureau Brothers Foundry in Philadelphia.[20]
  • Statuette of Franklin Pierce, bronzed composition metal, New Hampshire Historical Society, Concord, New Hampshire, c.1896, height: 27 in (69 cm)[21] Likely Ellicott's entry in the 1896 design competition for a statue (unexecuted) for the New Hampshire State House.[22]

References

Media related to Henry Jackson Ellicott at Wikimedia Commons